


The Jigsaw Job

by Gryffens



Series: The Jigsaw Arc [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 23:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19238905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryffens/pseuds/Gryffens
Summary: Tres Horny Boys have defeated the Hunger - and blown themselves up in the process. Jeffandrew offers them a job.





	The Jigsaw Job

“All right, I got a serious question” Merle said. ( _“I doubt it,’ interjected Magnus_.) “Did we win?”

Jeffandrew smiled, but he looked sad as well. “You won, Merle. You did more than anyone could have possibly expected… but many things were destroyed along the way.”

“Well that’s not our fault!” Merle said.

“Except for Phandalin,” said Taako.

“And all those people we killed,” said Magnus.

“But apart from that, it definitely wasn’t our fault,” Merle concluded.

Jeffandrew laughed. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t what I was implying.” Then he turned serious. “The Hunger absorbed over two hundred and fifty planar systems. When you, Lucretia, cast your spell it severed all of its bonds, shattering the Hunger into innumerable pieces. It also destroyed your corporeal forms.”

There was a long pause.

“Well, shit.” Taako said.

“So we ARE dead,” Magnus said.

“Not exactly,” said Jeffandrew. “Dead souls go to the astral plane - and I can certainly arrange that, if you wish. But there is another option. I’m not able to interfere with a planar system that’s already been created, not in any major way. But I can create a new planar system, one that would allow you a physical existence. You would have a job to do there, and once you are done, you and your new bodies can be returned to any plane you choose.”

“Well what is this job? And how long will it take?” Magnus asked.

“I can’t tell you, and a long time,” Jaffandrew said. “But time is not the issue. After the job is done I can return you to Faerûn at the very moment that the Hunger was defeated. The only thing I require is your consent.”

Merle spoke first. “I mean, I gotta take the option that gets me back to my kids. Even if it’s a long time for me, I’m not gonna die on them if I can help it.”

“Okay, point number one, one of these days we have got to talk about your secret family,” Taako said. “Two, that’s a really good fucking point. Even if I can hang out with Kravitz on the Astral Plane, Lup wouldn’t be happy if I come back dead. Sign me up, I guess.”

Magnus sighed. “I really don’t like the idea of going even longer without seeing Julia again. But I’m not letting you guys go alone.”

And now Lucretia was the only one left. She was staring out into the white nothingness. “I thought that I would be able to rest now,” she said softly.

“Hey, feel free to drop dead, no skin off my nose!” Taako said cheerfully.

“Taako!” Merle and Magnus shouted.

“It’s up to you Lucretia,” Jeffandrew said. “All that I can say is that this job is well within your capabilities, and that it will help people.”

She sat silently for a few more moments. “Yes,” she said, simply…

… and the world dissolved into threads of white light.

 

***

 

It was a feeling that Taako was intimately familiar with. He saw projections of himself, thousands of Taakos bursting out in all directions. And then thousands of white threads of light pull him back together, and he’s standing at the helm of the Starblaster. The _very crowded_ deck of the Starblaster.

“Oh thank fuck,” Lup says. She’s standing there, in the elf body that you haven’t seen for a decade, and without even thinking you’re clinging onto her desperately. Over her shoulder you can see Barry, but also Kravitz and Angus looking around quizzically. Merle and Davenport are slapping each other on the back, and a shocked Lucretia is being hugged by Carey _and_ Killian.

“Hey Mango, you seeing this dope shit...” Taako said as he turned his head, his voice trailing off as he saw what was happening behind him.

Magnus was on his knees, weeping. As the room’s inhabitants see him they fall silent, until his soft cries are the only sound. His face is buried in the chest of a human woman, who is tenderly cradling him in two strong tanned arms. Crinkle lines form around bright green eyes as she smiles at everyone.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Julia.”

An immediate babble of voices arose, questions of why and how they all got here, questions about the Hunger, about the fight for Neverwinter. Taako felt the impending migraine that started on the Rockport Limited get even stronger. Fed up, he shot a shower of sparks up into the air.

“All right, everybody shut the hell up. Cap’nport, I have three questions, and they are very important, so listen up. Number one, does the Starblaster have enough power to last 24 hours?”

Davenport went white and sprinted over to the console. He twisted a few dials and took a few readings. “Bond engine is running hot and we are… good. We’re good. Thanks the gods.” he said in relief

“Okay, question number two. Do we have enough air?”

A few more checks. “Yup, CO₂ scrubbers are at maximum efficiency, catalytic converters have full arcane energy.”

“And now for the most important question of them all. For the sake of my life and my sanity… _do we have hot water?_ ”

Davenport laughed. “Hot water system is online.”

“Right, here’s what’s happening. I call dibs on first shower. Kravitz, Lup, Barry and Angus, you’re after me. Then the five of us are going to my room and having _the most righteous nap_ in the history of the multiverse, because it has been a Long. Fucking. Day.”

Taako didn’t actually spend that long in the shower. The white-noise of running water usually soothed him, but he was too keyed up. Before long he heard a knock on the door, anyway, and Lup was there with a clean change of clothes. It was his fourth-favourite giant sleep t-shirt, which Lucretia had left on the Starblaster, presumably because it says ‘IPRE Does It In Space’ in the lettering of their homeworld.

“Thanks, Lulu,” he said.

She laughed. “Don’t thank you until you see Angus and Kravitz. I used my last two spell slots to size down something for Angus and size up something for Kravitz. It’s amazing.”

The sight that greeted Taako in his room was, in fact, amazing. Ango was in a pair of Barry’s pyjamas that had skulls with glowing red eyes all over them. Meanwhile, Kravitz was in a pair of Lup’s that was nearly identical, except instead of skulls they had fluffy pink sheep.

“I asked her why it wasn’t the other way around and she just cackled maniacally,” Kravitz said.

“Nope, this is perfect. A+ job Lup.”

As they shower one by one, they also kick the mess on the floor into one corner and drag the mattress onto the floor. Taako enlarges the mattress and blankets until there’s enough for everybody.

Taako and Lup lay down in the middle, arms tangled together and fingers entwined. Kravitz lays down behind Taako and Barry behind Lup. Angus makes a little nest at all their heads so that Taako only has to crook his head to see him. The magical exhaustion from their fight against the Hunger is hitting all of them hard, and it’s all Lup can do to wave her hand and bring the lights down to half brightness.

“You’re back,” Taako whispered. “You’re back, and we did it.”

“Yeah, bro,” Lup said, “You can rest now. We got you.”

And Taako knew no more.

 

***

 

Thanks to the timing of everyone’s various naps, it was almost 18 hours before they were all conscious again. Davenport apparently hadn’t slept at all, and he called a meeting on the deck as soon as everyone was awake.

As he walked out on the deck with the others, Taako saw inky blackness around the Starblaster in all directions. There were only two other things he could see. He saw the Light of Creation, floating above them like a miniature sun. There were also twinkles of light in the distance. It wasn’t like stars, though. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Maybe it was the light reflecting off something? It was also warmer than he remembered the Starblaster ever being.

“All right crew,” Davenport began. “Here’s what we know.”

“Number one, the bond engine is actually running at a surplus. That’s responsible for the increase in temperature you may have noticed. We’ll have to find something to use that energy for if we wish to stay comfortable.”

“Number two, we are adequately supplied for air and water, but we will soon be relying on transmuted and conjured food. So magic users, save your spell slot for the moment. That being said, we have some plants on board that should be able to provide food long-term.”

“Number three, it seems like all of us were approached by Jeffandrew and given the opportunity to come here and complete a ‘job’. This process included creating bodies for the incorporeal among us. We don’t know why the twelve of us were chosen, or if anyone else was offered the choice and turned him down.”

“Number four, according to our readings we are in the equivalent of interplanar space, but we don’t see any planes of any sort. The Light of Creation has been orbiting us at a rate that means it will take roughly a day to go all the way around. There is something else out there, as you can see, but I didn’t want to go after it until we were all alert.”

“Questions? Comments?”

Kravitz awkwardly raised his hand. He looked like a dork.

“Umm, hi,” he said. “I’m Kravitz, and I’m, umm, also the Grim Reaper? And I’d just like to add that Jeffandrew did more that make bodies. That would imply undead possession, and everyone here is actually alive. Also, Lup and Barry aren’t liches anymore.”

“Holy shit, we’re not?” Barry said.

“He also gave me my eye back, if anyone cares,” Merle added.

Taako’s hands flew to his face. He hadn’t even remembered to renew his Disguise Self spell. He tried to remember if he had seen his face since he woke up, but didn’t think he had.

Lup saw his panic and gave him a thumbs up. _Full hotness, babe,_ she mouthed at him. Taako relaxed.

“My comment is, I guess we’re not going to find out anything else if we hang around here, so why don’t we fire up the engine? Point this ship at the most interesting patch of blackness and see what happens?” Magnus suggested.

While several people (Taako included) pointed out that this was a typical Magnus solution, no-one could actually think of anything better. They took up strategic positions throughout the deck and helm. Carey, of course, climbed the mast. When they were all ready, Davenport kicked the bond engine into gear.

“I’m going to do a circle first, just to get the feel of things,” he announced over the intercom. Soon the twinkling lights began to shift position as the ship moved.

“Sir, look!” Angus said. He was pointing at the Light of Creation. “I think the Light is moving with us”. Sure enough as Davenport did a loop, followed by a figure eight, the Light of Creation kept pace with the ship.

“Next maneuver, I’m heading towards one of the other lights.” said Davenport.

The lights off the sides of the ship began to drift backwards. The ones in front of them were harder to judge. The must be getting closer, but they didn’t seem to be getting noticeably bigger. Taako braced himself…

_Plink_

“What was that?” yelled Killian.

_Plink. Plink._

Small shiny rocks were hitting the Starblaster, bouncing off the hull. One skidded to a stop near Taako’s feet, and his blood ran cold.

“Black opal!” he yelled as loud as he could. “It’s the fucking Hunger rock! Cut the engines!”

The bond engine whirred as Davenport threw it into full reverse. The sound of rock hitting the hull stopped. Taako pointed his Krebstar at the rock, his knuckles white on the staff, ready to blast it into oblivion. The others congregated around Taako, forming a ring around the shard of black opal.

“Don’t panic, everyone,” said Barry. “We can deal with this. Just nobody touch it.”

“Um,” said Carey. “Too late?” And she sheepishly opened her hand to show a shard of diamond.

“Carey, what the hell,” Killian said.

“It was flying past me, of course I caught it!” Carey said defensively. “By the way, it was definitely opal when it was in the air, but it turned into diamond after I touched it.”

“Diamond is also a planar gem,” Lucretia said. “It resonates with the Plane of Air.”

Barry took a deep breath. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get one of those impermeable boxes we got from the robot plane. Carey, you can put your diamond in one, and we’ll use the other to scoop up the opal. Then Merle, you’re going to give Carey a full physical, make sure she’s ok. Then I’m going to run a shitload of tests on these things, try to figure out what we’re dealing with. Sound good, Captain?”

“Excellent plan, Barry,” Davenport said.

 

***

 

After three days of exhaustive arcane and technological testing, the crew were exactly as in the dark as they were at the beginning. Carey was completely fine, the opal was still an opal, and the diamond gave every appearance of being an ordinary gemstone that, inexplicably, had previously been another gemstone. And so Barry had suggested moving onto stage two of the scientific method: poking it.

“We know the opal reacted to Carey, right? So maybe we need to interact with it,” Barry argued. The original Starblaster crew were in the lab, reviewing Barry’s (lack of) findings.

“And maybe it kills us all, did you think about that, Barold?” Taako said.

“Look, there’s literally nothing else out here. And I gotta believe the Jeffandrew didn’t bring us all here just to die.”

“Maybe,” Davenport said. “But can we take the risk?”

“Screw this,” Merle said abruptly, and tipped the opal into the palm of his right hand.

Nothing happened.

“All right, anyone else want a go?” he asked.

“Let me try,” Lucretia said. Merle passed it over, and as soon as it hit Lucretia’s skin it changed. “Grey Labradorite,” she said. “Resonant with the ethereal plane.”

“Well,” Davenport sighed. “Looks like we’re going on a fishing trip.”

They rigged some nets out of enlarged bedsheets and sailed out into the sparkles again. Over the course of a few hours everybody was able to find at least one shard that reacted to them. Angus could make the opal turn into a deep emerald, symbolising the Plane of Thought. Kravitz got the blue Sapphire of the Astral Plane. Taako, natch, made Amethyst for the Plane of Magic.

Merle swore long and loud when he found his match. He could turn the opal into the gemstone which resonated with the Celestial Plane. That gemstone, of course, was Pink Tourmaline.

Eventually Davenport stopped the ship and called another meeting. He cleared his throat. “New friends and old, we were brought here with a purpose. The creator of our reality told us that there was a job that needed doing, and that we would be able to help people by doing it. I believe that these gems give us our best clue yet as to what that is. Now before I say anything more, I would like to hear your theories.”

Angus stood up, looking nervous. “Sirs and ma’ams, I reviewed the reports from the incident in Lucas Miller’s lab, and it seems to me that the twelve of us are each able to turn the opal into one of the gems that represent the twelve planes. What’s more, the transition from opal to planar gem is very suggestive. As we all remember, black opal is the gem that represented the Hunger. Could it be that our job is to rescue the raw planar material from the mortal remains of the Hunger, thus restoring the absorbed planes to their initial state?”

Everybody applauded. Angus blushed and ducked his head.

“I mean, I had defo already worked that out,” Taako said. “But you did a really great job, little man.”

“Where did you find this kid?” Julia whispered to Magnus.

“We threw him off a train!” Magnus whispered back excitedly.

“So our job is to, piece by piece, rebuild over two hundred entire planar systems, using unmarked shards of gemstone. Is it me, or is this the shittiest jigsaw puzzle in all of creation?” Lup asked.

Taako looked around. He saw his sister sitting by the man she loved. He saw his boyfriend patting his student on the back, congratulating him on his detective work. He saw his dumb human friend holding hands with his ex-dead wife. He saw his captain, his cleric, and his coworkers, and he even saw the one who betrayed him… but there would be time to think about her later. From the sounds of it, they had plenty of time.

“Eh,” he said. “At least the company’s decent.”

**Author's Note:**

> For those who are interested - 
> 
>  
> 
> Prime Material – Malachite - Magnus  
> Ethereal - Grey Labradorite - Lucretia  
> Astral – Sapphire - Kravitz  
> Celestial - Pink Tourmaline - Merle  
> Magic – Amethyst - Taako  
> Thought – Emerald - Angus  
> Light - Golden Citrine - Julia  
> Shadow – Obsidian - Barry  
> Fire – Ruby - Lup  
> Water - Blue Topaz - Davenport  
> Earth - Tiger’s Eye - Killian  
> Air – Diamond - Carey


End file.
